The big loser is Nate Silver (and other pollsters). Silver is they guy who kept saying that Trump would collapse and gave Hillary a 99% chance of winning Michigan.
That he is the big loser means that Sanders win is Michigan becomes far more important. Sanders supporters have been claiming, wrongly, that the mainstream media is biased against him. It isn’t. But the media has long believed, on the basis of the initial contests and polls, that Sanders had no chance of winning the nomination and assumed, not unreasonably, that he is too far to the left to do so.
And Sanders reinforced that notion by calling for a political revolution. If you say you can only win with a political revolution, you better start showing people that you can make one. Losing the base of the Democratic Party, Blacks, by huge margins while failing to cut far into the white working class undermined Sanders strategy and claim to being electable in the general.
Now by reducing that margin among Blacks, and converting white workers in Michigan, Sanders has shown that he might just pull it off. And by doing so despite the expectations of the pollsters—and his own campaign, by the way which didn’t even have a victory speech prepared–he has guaranteed a great deal more press over the next few weeks.
Next week is difficult for Sanders. Florida and North Carolina are states where Clinton should do well. But if Sanders can now reduce the size of her wins there and Ohio, he will be well positioned for New York, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
I wrote six weeks ago that if Sanders can build a real movement the encompasses both white and black voters, he can not only win the nomination but the election. I’ve been disappointed that the movement hadn’t really shown itself. It may well have done so yesterday.